hhfandomcom-20200215-history
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city as well as a state of Germany. Berlin is also the largest city in Germany, as well its political and cultural center. Because of its division into West Berlin and East Berlin from 1949-1989, it is one of the most diverse cities in the European Union. Berlin is an important crossroad for the expanding European Union, as well as home for some of the national economic, cultural and educational institutions of Germany. The city hosts some of the most prominent universities, research facilities, theatres and museums in Europe. Berlin has also gain an international reputation for it festivals, nightlife, and contemporary architecture. The city is presently the six largest city in the European Union, with a population, as of September 2005, of 3,393,933 inhabitants. In the Hogan's Heroes series, as well as in actual history, Berlin was the capital of Nazi Germany. Reality Up to the end of the 12th century, the area around modern Berlin was made up mainly of small farming and fishing villages. In the 13th century, the twin towns of Berlin and Cölln were founded on the river Spree. Berlin used the name of the existing Slavic village (br'l which means "swamp"). Cölln may have been a new foundation, since its name (like Köln) represents Latin colonia = "colony". Cölln is first mentioned in documents on October 28, 1237, Berlin in 1244. City rights are first mentioned being received by Berlin in 1251, and Cölln in 1261, each town probably receiving these rights then or earlier. In 1307, the two towns formed a trading union on political and security matters, and participated in the Hanse. The towns urban growth occured at about the same time. By 1400, Berlin and Cölln had 8,000 inhabitants total. In 1417, Friedrich I of Brandenburg became ''Kurfürst'' of Brandenburg. Until 1918, the Hohenzollern family would rule Berlin, successively as Margraves of Brandenburg, Kings of Prussia, and Emperors of Germany. Berlin's people were unenthusiastic about the change, and revolted unsuccessfully against the monarchy in 1447. The result was the lost of many of their political and economic liberties. With Berlin now the capital of the Hohenzollerns, the city gave up its Hanseatic League free city status, while it main economic activity went from trade to the production of luxury goods for the court. The city's population grew very quickly, leading to poverty. Jews were the usual suspects, with 100 Jews being accussed of stealing and descerating hosts in 1510. 38 of them were then burn to death and the rest expelled from Berlin, although they were later allowed back in by other Margraves. In 1540, the Protestant Reformation arrived in Berlin when Joachim II converted Brandenburg to Lutheranism and confiscated church possessions: this is secularization. Joachim used the money from these confiscated properties for building projects. In 1576, the town was hit by the bubonic plague which killed about 4,000 people. But the area continued to grow, having a population of around 12,000 inhabitants by 1600. The city was hit hard by the Thirty Years' War: a third of the homes were damaged by the war, while the population shrank to 6,000. But starting in 1640, under the policies of immigration and religious tolerance of the Great Elector, Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg (1640-1688), the city grew to 20,000 inhabitants and became a significant city in Central Europe for the first time. Among those who moved into Berlin during this time were 50 Jewish families from Austria, 6,000 from a total of 15,000 French Calvinist Huguenots after Frederick William had passed the Edict of Potsdam (1685), and people from Bohemia, Poland and Salzburg. By 1700, 20 percent of Berlin's inhabitants were French and their cultural influence was important to the city. In 1701, Friedrich III (1688-1701) had himself proclaimed Friedrich I (1701-1713), King in Prussia. (Not of Prussia, as he didn't possess all of Prussia.) He made Berlin the Kingdom's capital. His successor, Friedrich Wilhelm I, (1713-1740) turned Prussia into a military power during his reign, through his reorganization of his army. In 1709, 55,000 people lived in Berlin, of whom 5,000 served in the army. That same year, Berlin, Cölln and several other towns were incorporated under the name of Berlin, with a total population of 60,000 inhabitants. In 1740, Friedrich II (1740-1786), better known to history as Frederick the Great, came to power. Under his role as a philosopher on the throne, Berlin became a center of the Enlightenment, the city of Immanuel Kant and Moses Mendelssohn. During the Seven Years' War, in 1760, the city was briefly occupied by the Russian army. Under his successor, Friedich Wilhelm II, the city stagnated, since Friedrich was an opponent of the Enlightenment. But during his reign the Brandenburg Gate, a modern symbol of the city, was rebuilt. In 1806, after the destruction of the Prussian army, French armies under Napoleon Bonaparte entered the city. The Prussians, who knew that they had been defeated by not only the French, but also by their own backwardness, began to reform. Among these was that Berlin was made a self-governing entity. In 1809, the first election for the Berlin parliament were held, although only the well-to-do were allowed to vote. In the following year, Berlin University (modern Humboldt University) was founded. In 1812, Jews were allowed to participate in all occupations. In 1814, the defeat of the French lead to the end of reforms. But economically, the city was sound. With a population of about 400,000 people, Berlin was now the 4th largest city in Europe. The city, like the rest of Europe, was affected by the Revolutions of 1848, although Friedrich Wilhelm IV was able to suppress the revolution in Prussia. Friedrich had the income requirement in Berlin raised so that only 5% of the city's population would be able to vote. The system stay in place until 1918. In 1861, Wilhelm I (1861-1888) came to the throne. There was hopes for liberalization at the start of his reign, since he appointed several liberal ministers. His appointment of Otto von Bismarck ended those hopes. German Empire Prussia became the dominant state when Germany was unified after three major wars: the Danish-Prussian War of 1864, the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. When the German Empire was established in 1871, Wilhelm became emperor, Bismarck chancellor and Berlin the capital. In the meantime, Berlin had become an industrial city of 800,000 inhabitants. Necessary improvements to the infrastructure were made: in 1896 the construction of the subway (U-Bahn) began and was completed in 1902. The neighborhoods around the city's center were filled with tenement blocks. The economic boom caused by the new function of Berlin as the capital of an Empire was followed by a crisis in the later half of the 1870s. In 1884 the construction of the parliament building, the Reichstag, was begun. It was finished in 1894. In 1914, Germany became involved in World War I. The war soon led to hunger, thanks to the Allied naval blockade. In the winter of 1916/1917 150,000 people were dependent on food aid, and strikes broke out. In 1918, as the war was coming to an end, Wilhelm II abdicated. The socialist Philipp Scheidemann at the Reichstag and communist Karl Liebknecht at the palace both proclaimed a republic. In the next several months Berlin became a battleground between the two political systems. Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany and World War II Weimar Republic In December, 1918, the German Communist Party (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, KPD) was founded in Berlin. In January, 1919, it tried to seize paower (the Spartacist revolt). The coup failed and at the end of the month right-wing forces killed Communist leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. In March, 1920, Wolfgang Kapp, founder of the right-wing German Fatherland Party (Deutsche Vaterlands-Partei), tried to bring down the government, with support from the local garrison, via a putsch. A number of government buildings were occupied (since the government had already left the city), but the putsch soon failed because of a general strike. On October 1, 1920, "Greater Berlin" (Groß-Berlin) was created by the incorporation of several nearby towns and villages into the city. Berlin's overall population increased from about 2 to about 4 millions inhabitants as a result. In 1922, the foreign minister Walther Rathenau was murdered in Berlin. The city was shocked by the murder; half a million people attended his funeral. The economic situation during the early years of the Weimar Republic was bad. Because of the large sum of reparation money that the government had to pay because of the Treaty of Versailles, and government's printing of large amount of money to help pay for it, inflation was enormous. This hurt especially workers and pensioners. Things improved in 1924 thanks to new agreements made with the allies, American help and a sounder fiscal policy. The city's hayday thus began: Berlin soon became the cultural center of Europe, thanks to such people as architect Walter Gropius, physicist Albert Einstein, painter George Grosz and writers Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Tucholsky. Night life bloomed in 1920s Berlin. In 1922, the city's railway system was electrified and tranformed into the S-Bahn, and a year later Tempelhof airport was opened. This infrastructure was needed to help feed and move the over 4 million Berliners. But not all was well in Berlin. Even before the 1929 crash, 450,000 people were unemployed. In that same year, Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party won its first seat in the city parliament. On July 20, 1932, the Prussian government of Otto Braun was ousted by a military coup. The Weimar Republic was nearing collapse, finally falling to pressure from the forces of both the extreme left and right. On January 30, 1933, Hitler became German Chancellor, after doing away with the Social Democrats. Nazi Germany Berlin, although never a center of the National Socialist (Nazi) movement, became the capital of the Third Reich when Hitler became Chancellor. On February 27, 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire. The fire gave Hitler the opportunity to set aside the constitution. Around 1933, some 160,000 Jews were living in Berlin, which was about one third of all Jews then living in Germany. A third of them were poor immigrants from Eastern Europe. Jews were persecuted from the beginning of the Third Reich. During the first week of April, Nazi officials ordered the German population to not buy at Jewish shops. During the 1936 Summer Olympic Games, the "forbidden for Jews" signs inside the city were removed so as not to alienate foreign visitors to the Games. After the brutal pogrom of Kristallnacht in 1938, thousands of the city's Jews were imprisoned in the concentration camp at nearby Sachsenhausen. By September 1, 1939, 75,000 were still living in Berlin. 50,000 were eventually sent to the concentration camps, were most were murdered. The last Jews (except for a few who were married to non-Jews) were marched to the Grunewald railway station in early 1943 and shipped in cattle cars to the death camps. Only 1200 Berlin Jews survived, mostly through hiding. In 1936 the Summer Olympic Games were held in Berlin (though the Games were given to Germany before 1933) and used by the Nazis as a showcase for Nazi Germany. The Nazis also had plans made to rebuild Berlin as "Germania, Capital of the World", under the leadership of Albert Speer. The main reasons for theses ideas was because Hitler believed that Berlin was an ugly city, as well as it was a bastion for left-wing politics in Germany, which it still is today. These plans were shelved because of World War II. World War II External links * Berlin (Wikipedia) * History of Berlin (Wikipedia) * Webstalag 13 * The Hofbrau Category:LocationsCategory:Events